I remember Damien HIrst saying something about it being the duty of the younger generations to kick up against the establishment until they themselves become the establishment and are kicked up against.

I believe that our industry has moved much less than other art forms because the younger generations are afraid to break the normal order of things as the older members of our profession are the ones perceived to be holding the keys. I feel we must be braver at times and say that if those are the doors the keys open, i don't want them. Those rooms are old, dusty and boring. Lets build new buildings even if they are weird and barely habitable to begin with, or even if we don't quite know what it is we are building. It is enough to know that we've had a look in those old rooms and we don't want to settle there in the dust.

Sculptor Richard Serra says...

"Everyone who makes art has to invent their own procedures. If you're dealing with hand-me-down procedures you're probably dealing with the academy as it exists, and the thing with art is that it's not linear in that way. Every generation will invent their own procedures and processes for their own needs."

I am not, of course, dismissing past generations and their work but acknowledging that we, that is our generation, are the next step in the evolution of our form and that we must have the courage to throw away and dismiss that which we believe to be stultifying, no matter how deeply entrenched such ideas seem and no matter who they fuck off. Those that are fucked off are not the kind of people our art needs as they are short sighted and closed, those who really care will at least be interested in new ideas, even if they may disagree.

We may even need the courage, if we are truly more serious about the potential of our art form, than we are about our careers, to say 'no', to argue, to ruffle feathers, to answer back and maybe even get sacked, I am no longer sure how much is left that i really want to be part of. There is some magic to be found but it is in tiny pockets and for the very lucky, and good for them, but so much of what goes on requires games playing, cock sucking and lying to oneself and the audience. If being an actor in this industry means frequently engaging in acts of charlatanism, then i am not sure i want to be an actor in this industry. That is not what i think of as being an actor. It is, possibly being a mug.

Maybe i'm just bitter that i don't get more of the pockets of magic. However, if they are so few and far between, there must be something wrong that needs changing.

I wonder if it a question of the long game. We may fuck everyone off now and shoot ourselves in the foot but over time, the young people who have started to really get what we are doing will be the ones in charge. Every big movement is a reaction to the last one so why is theatre in this country so afraid of that?

Where would we be without Brecht, Beckett, Chekhov, Stravinsky, Lennon, Kubrick, Dylan, the Beats, Warhol etc etc ????